Nathaniel Hawthorne

Set in the utopian community of Blithedale, Miles Coverdale, embarks on a quest for betterment of the world through the agrarian lifestyle and community of the Blithedale Farm.

The famed author of quintessentially American works such as The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne also wrote a series of books designed for younger readers. Tanglewood Tales is a collection of Greek myths charmingly retold for young American audiences.

Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest the reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a snake. From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a flight of broad stone steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of the Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right below.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, where his birthplace is now a museum. William Hathorne, who emigrated from England in 1630, was the first of Hawthorne's ancestors to arrive in the colonies. After arriving, William persecuted Quakers. William's son John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials.

Hook younger readers on early American history with this engaging collection of interlinked stories from literary master Nathaniel Hawthorne. Using a recurring motif of a beautifully crafted antique chair, Hawthorne weaves together tales of the founding days of New England and the United States.

In the old city of Troezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named Theseus. His grandfather, King Pittheus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man; so that Theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's instructions. His mother's name was Aethra. As for his father, the boy had never seen him. But, from his earliest remembrance, Aethra used to go with little Theseus into a wood, and sit down upon a moss-grown rock, which was deeply sunken into the earth. Here she often talked with her son about his father, and said that he was called Aegeus, and that he was a great king, and ruled over Attica, and dwelt at Athens, which was as famous a city as any in the world. Theseus was very fond of hearing about King Aegeus, and often asked his good mother Aethra why he did not come and live with them at Troezene. "Ah, my dear son," answered Aethra, with a sigh, "a monarch has his people to take care of.

Hawthorne's first published novel, Fanshawe combines romantic themes with an engaging look at college life in the early nineteenth century. Critics have noted that the novel has strong autobiographical components and is likely a thinly fictionalized account of the writer's own experiences as a student at Bowdoin College.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is regarded as one of the masters of early American short fiction. Long-time fans and curious newcomers will appreciate this collection of Hawthorne's short stories, which brings together some of his most important early work and was praised by a chorus of illustrious contemporaries such as Melville, Poe, and Whitman.

First published in 1850, "The Scarlet Letter" is Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece and one of the greatest American novels. Its themes of sin, guilt, and redemption, woven through a story of adultery in the early days of the Massachusetts Colony, are revealed with remarkable psychological penetration and understanding of the human heart. Hester Prynne is the adulteress, forced by the Puritan community to wear a scarlet letter A on the breast of her gown.

Hawthorne struggled in vain to complete this fragment of a romance for more than twenty years. Based on an old English legend of a bloody footprint, it illuminates many of the themes Hawthorne touched on in his greatest works, as well as his methods of composition. It was published posthumously in 1883.

Hawthorne's son Julian edited and published his father's last, unfinished novel-"undress rehearsals"-in 1882. A story involving the narrator, an archetypal mad scientist, a lovely young woman, and a sexy maid creates a real science-fiction type romance. A New England setting and a Gothic theme give the novel a feeling of completeness, despite its lack of a true end.

"The Artist of the Beautiful" is a short story by the American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story was first published in 1844 and was included two years later in the collection Mosses from an Old Manse published by Wiley & Putnam. "The Artist of the Beautiful" follows Owen Warland as he works on an unknown project. The story begins with Peter Hovenden, a retired watchmaker and Owen's former master, walking by with his daughter Annie.

Many of the tales collected in Mosses from an Old Manse are allegories and, typical of Hawthorne, focus on the negative side of human nature. Hawthorne's friend Herman Melville noted this aspect in his review "Hawthorne and His Mosses": This black conceit pervades him through and through. You may be witched by his sunlight, -transported by the bright gildings in the skies he builds over you; but there is the blackness of darkness beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds. 2]William Henry Channing noted in his review of the collection, in The Harbinger, its author "had been baptized in the deep waters of Tragedy", and his work was dark with only brief moments of "serene brightness" which was never brighter than "dusky twilight

The Marble Faun is Hawthorne's most unusual romance, and possibly one of the strangest major works of American fiction. Writing on the eve of the American Civil War, Hawthorne set his story in a fantastical Italy. The romance mixes elements of a fable, pastoral, gothic novel, and travel guide. The climax comes less than halfway through the story, and Hawthorne intentionally fails to answer many of the reader's questions about the characters and the plot.

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